Three Precisions: Social Justice

First Things ^ | 12/01/2009 | Michael Novak

[BuckeyeTexan]

What Is Social Justice?

What, exactly, is social justice? (snip) Are we to gather from this that the term social justice is simply a synonym for living out the beauty of the Beatitudes?

I once heard a professor at the Catholic University of Ružomberok, Slovakia, say that he thought of social justice as “an ideal arrangement of society, in which justice and charity are fully served. Until then, one cannot say that social justice has been realized.” Does this mean that social justice is a social ideal by which some people measure reality and toward which they strive, progressively, to move society?

American socialist Irving Howe once wrote that “Socialism is the name of our dream.” He meant a dream of justice and equality and (for him) democracy. Is social justice also the name of a dream, but not exactly the socialist dream?

To which genus does social justice belong? Is it a virtue? Is it a vision of a perfectly just society? Is it an ideal set of government policies? Is it a theory? Is it a practice?

Is social justice a secular, nonreligious concept? Many secular sociologists and political philosophers use the term that way, trying to tie it down as closely as they can to the term equality in the French sense, in which the word égalité also means the mathematical equal sign.

Or is social justice a religious term, evangelical in inspiration? Has social justice become an ideological marker that favors (in the American context) progressives over conservatives, Democrats over Republicans, and social workers over corporate executives?

...

[BuckeyeTexan]

Three of the terms used most frequently in Catholic social thought—and now, more generally, in much secular discourse—are social justice, the common good, and personal (or individual) liberty. Often, these terms are used loosely and evasively. Not a few authors avoid defining them altogether, as if assuming that they need no definition. But all three need, in every generation, to recover their often lost precision. Otherwise, the silent artillery of time steadily levels their carefully wrought strong points and leaves an entire people intellectually and morally defenseless.

I have tried, in three short essays, to find some precision in these three realities and to define them in terms as dear to the left as to the right—that is, in ideologically neutral ways. If I have failed in that task, perhaps someone can do it better. The more of us who try, the better.

I will start, today, with social justice.

~Michael Novak, 12/1/2009

[Gaffer]

"Social Justice" of today has nothing to do with established logical thought or 'the common good'.

Social Justice of today is an EBT card.

Social Justice today is a jury nullification of a minority crime against an evil 'white'.

Social Justice is confiscation of earned individual wealth to distribute to the slothful undeserving

Social Justice is third world camoflage abetting destruction of this country

Social Justice is EVIL working against GOOD

[RobinOfKingston]

“Social justice” is a term used by the left to bludgeon the rest of the culture about the head and shoulders. It is unachievable, therefore it will always be the, or at least a, weapon of choice against those who have no intention of giving away that extra Cadillac to the homeless guy living under the bridge.

[Jeff Chandler]

It means eating away at a successful culture until it resembles Mexico.